Lullaby shrugged. “I’m a survivor. My father’s people believe in the wind and the tide and the sound of the water—it’s no skin off my back to swear faith to a god I don’t believe in.”
“Will you—?” I swallowed. I wanted Lullaby’s help, but I didn’t want her to end up in another dungeon because of choices I’d made on my own. “You should protect yourself. If my plan goes sideways, I don’t want you getting caught on the wrong side.”
“You’re an idiot,” Lullaby laughed. “You’d have to beat me away from this plan with a stick. But thank you for offering.”
My next conversation didn’t go so smoothly.
“You want us to dowhat?” Billow asked sharply.
I gritted my teeth. While I’d been talking to Lullaby, Oleander had gathered all the remaining Sinister courtiers in the abandoned Belsyre Wing—about a dozen legacies, all told. They glowered at me, seated very close together on sheet-draped furniture.
I unfolded my hands on my knees. When I’d brought this up with Oleander, she’d been sure they’d want to cooperate with me.
“What you callloyalty to Severine,” she’d argued, “I call survival. We were all her pawns—her tools. We were loyal to her because anything else meant death. She dangled her favor between us like a bone before hounds, then made us fight our friends and family for it. You never understood what it meant to be subjugated—think on that before you call them blindly loyal to a wicked empress.”
So I had. I’d thought about it during the whole journey from Belsyre. I thought about it when Calvet was willing—no,asked—to risk his life yet again forme, someone who’d never done anything for him besides exist. I thought about everything Dowser had tried to teach me about leadership, about hope. About being both who you wanted the people to see, and who they wanted to seein you.
I’d thought the people wanted spectacle. But spectacle wasn’t the same thing asinspiration.
“Let me start again.” I looked calmly at the Sinister legacies who led the group. “Billow, Haze, Shade, Tangle—Iwantyour help. But even if I were in a position to command it, I wouldn’t.”
Haze shot a bemused glance at Billow.
“I know what it means to have your dreams held captive,” I continued. “The women who raised me told me that to want was unholy, that to dream was a sin. Because they didn’t have the power to stop me, I rebelled against them. But I was alone. I had no friends, no family. I could afford to be selfish because there was no one but myself to look after.” I took a breath. “It’s different when someone owns you, at the cost of the people you love. Severine manipulated your families by holding you hostage, and vice versa. And when I gained power, I did the same thing. I held you here like prisoners, because I couldn’t trust what you or your families would do. That’s all over.
“I know I’m no longer dauphine. And if you don’t help me, it probably won’t be my head that crown sits on come Ecstatica. But I want you to know—regardless of which heir you choose, whom you swear loyalty to—I consider you free. You won’t lose anything by refusing me. In fact, you’re more likely to lose something by helping. You’re free to choose, as your conscience and instinct demands.”
Haze stared at me, then burst out, “That bastard made me swear the Scion’s Vow, or lose my title and fortune! My family estates were annexed during the Conquest, but we have always worshipped the Zvar gods.”
“He’s right,” Tangle said, through her teeth. “Severine made us do awful things in her name, but it’s easier to justify violence when you’re just trying to protect yourself, your family. Forcing someone to go against their beliefs? That’s too far.”
Billow still looked unconvinced. She looked hard at Oleander.
“You and Sunder were always the best of us, loved and feared in equal measure,” she said. “Why are you helping her?”
“If you thought you loved us, you didn’t know us,” Oleander said. “And if you feared us, it was because you had been taught to do so. Mirage may be a fantast, but she has never been anything but authentic. She told us what she wanted, and we hated her for it; she told us the world she dreamed of, and we told her she couldn’t build it without all the trappings of power we loathed about our previous monarchs. Don’t get me wrong—she’s just as flawed as the rest of us. But at least she’s not pretending otherwise.”
“If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me,” Billow sighed. “I’ll do as you ask. Everyone else is free to choose as they will.”
After a beat, every other Sinister courtier raised their hand or nodded in agreement.
It was unanimous.
Sinister stood with me.
And as pride and doubt and anticipation swelled within me, I only wished we weren’t missing one.
I went to see Dowser alone.
He sat in his study by himself, poring over some antiquated document. When he saw me he surged to his feet. His smile was a kind of validation.
“Lullaby told me you survived the third Ordeal,” he said. “But part of me wasn’t sure you’d be back. I thought you might accept your—your happy ending with Sunder.”
“I don’t want any more endings,” I said. “I want a new beginning.”
Swiftly, I told Dowser about my theories, my plans, and what this coronation might look like. He slowly polished his spectacles on his robe.
“You were right. That old dream of yours is dead. But only because you’ve found a new one.”
